Chapter Text
Well, she’d helped them. It was a foolish decision. It did not matter, because death only demanded death in equal stroke of repayment. If Cinder did not die of this injury, he would sooner kill her. It made her angry. He did not have the right to kill her, but somehow, she would rather he killed her than touch her.
She watched him and his gaggle of teammates collect their breaths. The Grimm faded, smoky remains corrupting the air. The smell was sulphuric. She had never got used to it. She thought eventually she would. When she slept and woke up on her left side, she would dry-heave from the sensory bombardment: the arm, only ever the arm, as she thought it, and its horrible smell, its distorted shape, its reminder of... what she was.
Not that she thought about it particularly much. She was stretched thin, and hungry.
So she hungered, and felt a pain in the back of her throat like she might cry. Cinder had not cried in a while, but the feeling climbed up inside of her and took root. Why had she helped them? It was lunacy. How many lifetimes would she wait for somebody to come for her, or kill her?
It was always the latter.
Nobody was coming for her. If they did, they would simply witness her agony for a brief moment and move on anyway.
Just as Ruby Rose did now. Cinder could see what she was thinking written all over her face, in those terrifying eyes. Those eyes hurt. Those eyes considered her enemy, but with a note of hesitance. The Schnee said something to her. Nora and Ren said nothing, but shared a look between each other which reminded her of— well, she would not think it. The fury started to build in her hollow inside. That was easier. That was familiar. Cinder could handle pain and fury. They were her constant companions. They made her strong, and they kept people away from her.
She looked at him. Jaune. The one who wanted to kill her once. It had wounded her pride, just as much as she recognised how much he had wanted to die. She had thought, at first, that he thought himself capable of it— killing her then. But it had been his own strange deathwish. Like it could have undone the murder, and brought back the girl who believed in destiny just as much as Cinder did. It would not.
She hoped that she had taught him a lesson.
“This is your next lesson,” she said to him. She tried to pull herself off the ground. It was hard to hold herself up.
“Lesson?” he said.
“Your first one, don’t foolishly kill yourself. The second,” she said, “is equally the same lesson, but now you have... the gift... of killing me the way you wanted.”
She could not look into his eyes. They were more dangerous than Ruby’s, doubly so; they were a blue which frightened her, a sort of mysterious dark blue which was kind, which carried pain she had put there. Not that she minded. She was used to that. What was it Salem had said? To create a new world... sacrifices had to be made. Cinder wanted to consume it or burn it, she was not sure which yet. She was less sure about him: if she wanted to kill him or take him.
“But you saved me,” he said so lowly, only to her.
“I didn’t save you,” she snapped. She tried to stop the blood leaking from her. The sky was black. The sky was as black as her blood, sickly looking as it dripped.
“You have to stop doing this.”
“I didn’t do anything!”
“You think you can keep coming and then leaving?” he said. “Turning up and helping us and then running away—”
“It’s the way it’s supposed to be. Now hurry up.”
What he did next hurt worse than the simple death she expected. He tore out something inside of her which had been sleeping its whole life. Silent, timeless, as old as the day she killed Rhodes. “You could come with us,” he said.
“That’s ridiculous.” It was. It was the stupidest thing she had ever heard. It was the only thing she had ever wanted to hear. It was the dream of a little girl whom she had killed herself, just like the rest of her.
“Come with us,” he said again. “The rest of it doesn’t matter right now.”
“I’m your enemy. What of your team? What do they think?” She gestured with her chin. “You know as well as I do that you kill me or you leave me here. I don’t... go with you.”
“I’ve spent a lot time thinking about the things I’m supposed to do, and the things you think you have to do. If you asked me now, I would tell you I really don’t think it matters anymore. We’re making it up as we go along, and I’m— tired. I don’t want to kill you.”
“But you should,” she said. “Everything I’ve done.”
“It won’t bring them back,” he said.
“So you did learn your lesson.”
“But you could still come back,” he continued, breaking her, piece by piece. He must have seen her expression. She should not have let him see it. But she did. He seemed to always catch her in a moment of vulnerability: her glass mask, breaking it; the Winter Maiden electrocuting her the way she was as a girl; the briefest of brief moments when she would want to see what they would say, when she helped, because Cinder was stuck between two worlds, and she was timeless and sleeping, sleeping, wondering when she would wake up. Then he would look at her.
Why him? Why him at all?
She did not expect him to do what he did next. Cinder thought he was going to suffocate her, perhaps, as he leant towards her. Maybe spit in her face. She could not conceive of any other option. Instead he slipped one arm gently under her back and the other under her knees. He must have seen the confusion, because she heard the gentlest of huffs, too soft to be a laugh. He was always soft. She could not understand how he could be so soft: from that hair to his hands to his eyes. She had only seen him harden around her. She wanted him softly. She wanted him to be delicate and handle her kindly.
She wanted somebody to ask her to go with them her whole life. She did not want to stay behind... but she would never accept the question, no matter how much she desperately wanted it. So he took her into his own hands, it seemed, and she wanted to fight and kick and scream but for once in her life, she did not want it to end in a fight. So she let him carry her. She must have been heavy. She bled all over his clothes, but he seemed to pay it no mind.
“You’re not heavy,” he said. “Don’t worry.”